This is an actual comeback from her. That feeble attempt back in 2006 fizzled out rather quickly, but she seems more committed than ever. 2 more wins and she'll qualify for the main draw. Plus ESPN will surely talk about her/show footage of her since she's back representing (AUS) and is/was a name on the WTA tour.

Damn it Naldo, we jinxed her.

01-10-2008 09:14 PM

Havok

Re: Don't call it a comeback, it's just Jelena Dokic! (A place for Fumus, Naldo, Jace

This is an actual comeback from her. That feeble attempt back in 2006 fizzled out rather quickly, but she seems more committed than ever. 2 more wins and she'll qualify for the main draw. Plus ESPN will surely talk about her/show footage of her since she's back representing (AUS) and is/was a name on the WTA tour.

01-10-2008 03:08 PM

Fumus

Re: Don't call it a comeback, it's just Jelena Dokic! (A place for Fumus, Naldo, Jace

Jelena def. Erakovic 6-4, 6-1...in AO QFs!!! ! !

THE AUSTRALIAN

January 11 2008

JELENA DOKIC has described as "hell and back" the journey she has taken from the depths of depression, when she sat in her Croatian home less than a year ago unable to contemplate picking up a racquet, to her return to the professional tour.

Jelena Dokic during her match in Melbourne against Marina Erakovic from New Zealand, Thursday January 10, 2008. Picture: John Anthony
After pushing aside New Zealand's Marina Erakovic in the first round of qualifying for next week's Open, Dokic also revealed the extent of her physical transformation since first reporting for work at Melbourne Park less than three months ago.

When Dokic began training in October, having not set foot on a practice court for the previous seven months or played a WTA event for the previous two years, her weight had ballooned to 83kg, leaving her too embarrassed to shed her tracksuit pants.

When she walked off the court yesterday afternoon, having moved well throughout her straight-sets win over Erakovic despite temperatures topping 40C, she revealed her weight was down to 67kg; the result of an intense, disciplined regime of training, conditioning and diet.

"I think it is about 16kg now that I have lost - I have obviously a couple more to go," she said. "I started in the middle of October exactly, so it hasn't even been a full three months yet and I am very proud of my progress. If you told me a month ago that I would do as well as I did in Hobart and even win the first match here, I would have been pretty happy.

"Even mentally it is a different story. I have been very positive throughout the whole thing. I have tried to be a bit of a perfectionist and to get everything in order because that is what I need to do.

"I am really starting from scratch and there is no easy way to go through that. I have really worked hard on everything and really sacrificed a lot the last three months."

At 24, Dokic still has plenty of work to do if she is to regain the fitness and form that took her to the semi-finals of Wimbledon and, briefly, No4 in the world. She believes her ideal playing weight is 62kg.

More importantly, she needs her ranking to improve to the point where she can avoid the cut-throat qualifying draws, which she has had to negotiate in Hobart and Melbourne. Given the extent of the personal and professional crisis she has emerged from, Dokic believes the worst of it - and the worst years of her life - are behind her.

While she would not detail the issues she has spent two years confronting, she gave a rare insight into the dysfunctional private life of a troubled star.

"It is not like I just went on a holiday and wasn't here for two years," she said. "I had a lot of issues I had to sort through and, mentally, I had to just be able to play and be able to enjoy tennis.

"That is the thing I have missed the most and that is the thing that has suffered the most. I have really missed it, but I had to wait for the right frame of mind to play again.

"The kind of situation I was in the last two years, I am happy to be sitting here right now.

"It has been a long road. It has been a lot of hard work and a lot of nights that I haven't slept through. This is just something that needed to happen. I thought I would never pick up a racquet again."

Having rediscovered her joy for the sport, Dokic is happier now than perhaps any time since 1999, when she was a Sydney schoolgirl who stunned the tennis world by beating defending champion Martina Hingis in the first round at Wimbledon.

Her story since has become one of the most bizarre in world sport - shaped by conspiracy theories against the WTA, switching nationality from Australia to Serbia and back to Australia again, and culminating in absurd claims from her father Damir that she had been abducted by her boyfriend.

But after surviving the public disintegration of the relationship with her father, her painful decline through the tennis ranks and her self-imposed exile from the women's Tour, Dokic can again see tennis for what it used to be; a game she loves playing.

"I feel like, honestly, I have been through hell and back so this is just fun for me right now," she said. "If I win I am really happy, but if I lose, at the end of the day, it is just a tennis match.

"I haven't had a great life and a great couple of years so I am really just enjoying this. This is the thing that I will always love, no matter what happens in my life off the court. That is all I want to do right now."

12-05-2007 08:15 PM

Fumus

Re: What the hell is up with Jelena Dokic? (A thread for Naldo and Fummy)

So anyways, Jelena is yet again poised for a comeback. Also this thread is poised for a comeback, I was reading through it, man we used to be really funny back in 05'. By we I mean me, and by funny I mean dumb. ha!

JELENA Dokic says she wants to "reconnect" with the Australian public and return to the top echelons of the game after officially nominating for the Australian Open wildcard play-off.

"I needed some time away from the game to sort through some personal issues but now I'm back and very focused," Dokic told The Sunday Age. "I've been working very hard in training and I'm hopeful that things turn out well."

Dokic boasted a career-high ranking of No. 4 in the world in 2002, eight years after emigrating from her native Serbia with her family. A Wimbledon semi-finalist, her career has been in free fall after she changed her nationality to Yugoslav and then Serb after father Damir claimed the Australian Open draw was rigged against her.

The 24-year-old has no rankings points and an arbitrary computer ranking of 9999. She has earned almost $3.8 million in prizemoney but did little to add to that tally this season, earning $123 from a Futures Tour appearance. She believes her climb back to the top can begin with the Australian Open.

"I'd love to play in the Australian Open again," Dokic said. "… I'd like to think that by the end of 2008, I could be somewhere in the top 50."

Now based in Melbourne, Dokic has had a gruelling practice regime. She has been on court for up to four hours a day, six days a week.

Having seemingly sorted out her personal issues — she has fallen out with the controversial Damir — Dokic said she had been inspired by the stunning comebacks of Jennifer Capriati, Mary Pierce and Andre Agassi.

Dokic was hard at work at Melbourne Park yesterday, hoping to win a wildcard into the Australian Open.

The former Wimbledon semi-finalist has seen injury and personal problems way-lay her once-glittering career.

Now ranked 9999th in the world, Dokic has entered into the wildcard round-robin tournament to be played from December 15-21 in search of a singles spot in the main draw.

Dokic has rarely been seen on the tour since she won the same qualifying tournament last year, only to lose in the first round of the Open.

Here's a video of Jelena practicing for the OPEN back in October. You can see by looking at the pics which were taken this month, that in just about 2 months Jelena has lost alot of weight. I think she for serious!